George Washington Quotes

When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen.

Never a day passes but that I do myself the honor to commune with some of nature's varied forms.

A people... who are possessed of the spirit of commerce, who see and who will pursue their advantages may achieve almost anything.

Whatever you love opens its secrets to you.

A government is like fire, a handy servant, but a dangerous master.

To contract new debts is not the way to pay old ones.

Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.

Precedents are dangerous things; let the rein of government then be braced and held with a steady hand.

While just government protects all in their religious rites, true religion affords government its surest support.

In executing the duties of my present important station, I can promise nothing but purity of intentions, and, in carrying these into effect, fidelity and diligence.

Undertake not what you cannot perform, but be careful to keep your promise.

But if we are to be told by a foreign Power . . . what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have Independence yet to seek, and have contended hitherto for very little.

Remember, officers and soldiers, that you are fighting for the blessings of liberty.

My work is that of keeping every operation down (in size) so that the farmer and the man farthest down can get hold of it.

There is no practice more dangerous than that of borrowing money

If you listen carefully enough to anything, it will talk to you.

Government is at best a petulant servant and at worst a tyrannical master.

The power under the Constitution will always be in the people.

Play not the Peacock, looking everywhere about you, to see if you be well deck't.

The beating on the tail of the snake may stop his progress a little, but the more vital parts must be struck before his poisonous death-dealing venom will be wiped out.

I found that when I talk to the little flower or to the little peanut they will give up their secrets . . .

I cannot tell a lie. I cut down the cherry tree.

To encourage literature and the arts is a duty which every good citizen owes to his country.

The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy.

The Commander in Chief directs that Divine service be performed every Sunday at 11 o'clock...It is expected that officers of all ranks will by their attendance set an example to their men.

Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough.

We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience.

Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distress of everyone, and let your hand give in proportion to your purse.

A hundred thousand men, coming one after another, cannot move a Ton weight; but the united strength of 50 would transport it with ease.

It's wonderful what we can do if we're always doing.

The Constitution which at any time exists, 'till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole People is sacredly obligatory upon all.

A sensible woman can never be happy with a fool.

Purity of morals [is] the only sure foundation of public happiness in any country.

There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate, upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.

And in the afternoon they entered a land - but such a land! A land hung in mourning, darkened by gigantic cypresses, submerged; a land of reptiles, silence, shadow, decay.

God gave them [the discoveries] to me; how can I sell them to someone else?

Look about you. Take hold of the things that are here. Let them talk to you. You learn to talk to them.

Let me ... warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party.

Have the strength to be an honest person.

No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt: on none can delay be more injurious, or an economy of time more valuable.

He who puts a product upon the market as it demands, controls that market, regardless of color. It is simply a survival of the fittest.

[T]here is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists . . . an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness.

Education is understanding relationships.

Unwilling am I, in the evening of a life nearly consumed in public cares, to quit a peaceful abode for an Ocean of difficulties

Freemasonry is an order whose leading star is philanthropy and whose principles inculcate an unceasing devotion to the cause of virtue and morality.

It is an old adage that honesty is the best policy-this applies to public as well as private life-to States as well as individuals.

My observation is that whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty... it is worse executed by two persons, and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein.

A people unused to restraint must be led, they will not be drove.

There is no shortcut to achievement.

The Stamp Act imposed on the colonies by the Parliament of Great Britain is an ill-judged measure. Parliament has no right to put its hands into our pockets without our consent.